Canada Dock (Liverpool) Freight Line / Route of Coal Train
 

I was wondering about the route of the trians using this line ! What i would like to know where it goes once it has reached edge Hill and Heads towards Manchester Via Rainhill etc Ie were does it take the coal to ?

John,
Are you talking about the EWS coal trains from the Liverpool Bulk Terminal?

If so, they go to Fiddlers Ferry Power Station near Widnes. The route after Edge Hill is Rainhill - Earlestown (curve) - Warrington Bank Quay - Walton Old Junction Sidings (runround) - Latchford Siding (runround) - Fiddlers Ferry Power Station.

Ah yes i remember now ive Been to Fiddlers Fery Power Station once but not on a train though.

Isn't it very sad how they have to bring coal in from abroard now to give us power etc.

I couldn't agree more John. I swear that what I am about to say is true.

My father, a Whiston councilor when Fiddlers Ferry was being planned had to fight to get it a Dual Fuel Power Stn. The origional plan was for OIL only..... Boy where would that have led us since the 1960's eh?

Being a miner he fought for it to also burn coal....mined locally. Now they import it cheaply through Canada Dock from Venezuala or some such on the world market at inflated prices and whilst our own mines are dead and we pay our mining communities to sit on the dole....

"progress" or summat..............

It's incredible is'nt it what politicians have done to our country. You know what is more sad is that we have sat back and let them do it.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the miners strike, we have allowed an industry that could provide us with enough energy for decades, at least, to go to the wall.
I just find it unbelievable that we can now be so wise after the event.
Paul.

Paul, I belive the real problem is that many remaining British Coal seams are too thin and twisted to be mined economically. Unless by men with picks and shovels on 2/- a day. I agree that the closedown of the British mining industry was vindictive, but it was inevitable. Another 10 years of subsidised UK coal production would really have made no difference to those commumities.

Coal production
 

Sadly Shed Cat is right Paul. THe equipment used underground in modern coal mines is only really effective with thick, dry shallow unfractured seams and these were nearly all worked out years ago. The cost of hewing wet fault-ridden 6 inch seams miles from the shaft and then sending the mix of coal and slag back to the pithead on conveyers or tubs to be sorted above ground was destroying the whole of the UK coal industry. The NUM always spoke of 300 years of coal but the cost of extraction would have risen to £000s per tonne when customers could buy shiploads from abroad for a tenth of that. It wasn't Thatcher who closed the mines, it was coal's own customers buying elsewhere.

Hi all,
I couldn,t help but comment on this thread, I worked for the C.E.G.B. commissioning Fiddlers Ferry in the 70,s..I then lived in Runcorn.
at the start of its life the power station,had four coal/oil fired boilers. and four Gas turbines, The merry-go round system in use then was almost none stop (24/7) bringing coal in from as far as Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, 1 , 1000 tonne train could keep the boilers operational for approx 6 hours , to keep ahead of the requirements. at full generating capacity. The advent (or so it seemed) of cheap foriegn coal,(poland, Venazuela, etc ) did hurt the UK mining industry very hard. many of the Pits around here (Sheffield) where i now live , were closed forthwith , because of the cheap imports, however several are now being reopened, to supply our power stations again..the actual mining of the coal is mostly nowadays done by mechanised machinery, which takes rock and all ,but as power stations use pulverised fuel (coal dust) a bit of rock doesn,t matter,
just thought i would throw this into the mix as it were
best regards derby

DebRoy, I'm speaking about the "planning stage" of Fiddlers Ferry, well before it began to be constructed. The fact that it was able to burn coal at all when built was down to pressure from local Councilors and MP's who supported them. My Father was but one of those. Before that, the origional plan was for OIL burning only!

And Shed Cat, ...I'm sorry fella, You're wrong. I myself have worked in the local mines around Fiddlers Ferry. Local seams were: Wigan 4 feet, Wigan 5 feet, Rushy Park (6 feet).....and coal used to pour off the coal face conveyors from the most modern coal cutting machines available anywhere.

In other areas like Nottingshire, Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire, Seams up to 20ft thick were not uncommon.....

.............and it's all still down there, 300 yrs worth........now flooded, and probably unreachable.


EDIT:

I'm sorry, I should explain. Once a mine has been closed, the pumps are stopped, and naturally it floods. Eventually the water breaks up the strata for miles and if you then try to mine into it.............it has no strength of it's own anymore, and breaks up if you try to mine into it (after you have spent decades pumping out the water that is!) Any ex-miner will tell you that our deep mined coal is still there. It was abandoned for ever around 1984. Now we have to pay the inflated price for our coal fuel on the world market........yet we have centuries of the stuff beneath our feet!


One day soon, "clean coal technology" will be a reality. Removing the carbon from the burning process. If this is in a gaseous form, it could be used to pump down the drying out oil wells in order to extract the "dregs" of the wells in the North sea. Just like Arthur Scargill said (in 1984) and GW Bush said: (in 2008).


Funny old world isn't it?

I wont get involved in the technical and geological stuff, because interesting as it is, I dont really know anything about it.
I worked in the mining industry as well. In fact it was probably the happiest and most formative time of my working life.
I have worked on 3ft faces repairing machinery, and 12 ft seams repairing machinery. Those faces where, for any one who knows about these things, Mickley and Soft Coal. This was in the Derbyshire coalfield.
I make this point because I have worked in the industry, and all I know is that history will show that the decimation of the coal industry was for all the wrong reasons. Right or wrong, the miners strike has, and will continue to cost this country dearly. Not just in financial terms either.
Cheap fuel from abroad is only cheap for as long as the supplier wants it to be, no one owes us anything.
Paul.

Hi RES , yes i accept you were talking about the planning stages of FF power station,and that it was originally built for oil.
I also agree with your views on the pit closures..however over here in Yorkshire they were canny they kept the pumps going in around 40 pits ,,I know this because we are still delivering from the firm i work for ..pit props underground sleepers and rawl bars for screwing overhead protection in place, this stuff is going to pits closed 10 years or more ago..
There is still hope mate
best regards Derby

Hi Paul,
Much as i understand your points, and to a certain extent agree with them,
The only reason the British mining Industry was destroyed was for the same reason the former british railways was destroyed ..namely the government of the day..forget unions..it was all politics..don,t ask me why ? I don,t know but at the time the government needed scapegoats to bail them out so Rail, Steel , Merchant Navy, Car industry ,The coal industry,ship building ...the list is endless....
we were once self sufficient in many things now we have to speak to a foreign call centre to ask about our gas bill...need i say more ?
yours derbyroy

Absolutely spot on Derbyroy. My politics are not going to be the same as everyone else. I beleve that the major conflicts with governmant and unions have been manufactured to cause the maximum damage. I also believe that there are two sides to every argument, not something I have always believed by the way. I think it something to do with getting older and hopefully wiser.
Paul.

At the risk of betraying my old socialist principles, I've got to say that the miners strike of the '80's was the worst disaster to befall the Trade Union movement since the General Strike. Thatcher set the trap, and Arthur led his troops straight into it.

I don't think that the government deliberately set out to demolish the mining industry though, that was just an unhappy consequence. After the defeat of the NUM, capitalist priorities ran rampant, and the NUM in particular, and the Trade Union movement in general, was ill placed to fight it.

Ted Heath fought a general election in the 1970's on the basis of 'Who runs the country? (in essence, the trade unions or the government). We are only now, in national terms, beginning to pay for the consequences of that conflict.

Arthur made one fundamental error, he didn't ballot the NUM membership. If he had all the areas would have come out on strike and the outcome would have been very different.

Thatcher's track record in destroying British Industry speaks for itself.

Why the "dash for gas" as a power station fuel, if not to get the miners. It has never made sense to me to use gas as a fuel for power staions.

I dont trust ANY politician anymore. Perhaps I have been plain barmy to ever trust them. All I know is, we used to manufacture things in this country. Now we sell Swedish furniture and have multi screen cinemas where once we had craftsmen working.
That is the real disaster.
Paul.

this sadly Paul, is the result of our entering the EEC instead of standing by our Commonwealth of countries. we in the near future and our grandchildren will forever regret those actions. The politicians of the day have lined their pockets at the expense of the rest of us ,Baroness Thatcher ??? in earlier times the woman would have been hanged as a traitor...
along with most politicicians since...
Best regards Derby

Hey, I have to say, I'm so sorry all.....I'd completely forgotten about this post and I've only just found it again. Sorry!

You're all right of course from differing views and recolections of the time.

Coming from a NW coal mining village near "Fiddlers Ferry" I felt it greatly, even though I'd long since left the industry by then. Families were and are still to this day torn apart by family members who went back to work after almost 12 months of striking for their jobs. Yes! their Jobs! ..Not as many a Tory would have you believe..Money.

It was their JOBS they were fighting for and the belief in their industry to provide for the future. IMO They (and Arthur Scargill) have been proved to be right. WE are now at the mercy of the world coal price cartel which has risen along with the oil price...

Arthur said it was folly in 1984................IMO he was right.

One thing for you people of a "right" persuasion....We should have listened to Ted Heath, The Miners I believe could have done business with him for a far better future outcome for our Nation. He at least tried...alass he failed, though not for the want of him trying..